


we were so afraid (we cried ourselves a hurricane)

by PuriPuki



Series: blessed be the boys time can't capture [1]
Category: Fire Emblem: Kakusei | Fire Emblem: Awakening
Genre: (this refers to chrom and the og shepherds dying in the bad timeline), Character Death, Character Study, everyone else is just mentioned rip, the focus is lucina
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2016-11-07
Updated: 2016-11-07
Packaged: 2018-08-29 14:05:32
Rating: Not Rated
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 933
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/8492638
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/PuriPuki/pseuds/PuriPuki
Summary: “The costs of war are heavy, my lady.” Miriel says, kneeling to Lucina’s height. “But I swear to the Gods, we’ll do all we can to ensure these costs are not in vain”





	

It’s a vague memory, but Lucina is still able to recall the day of her little brother’s birth. Warm and sunny, she had touched his pink cheeks and jumped when he squealed. She distantly remembers promising to protect him, her father helping her hold Morgan in her arms. Her mother is still holding Marc, but she loves them both dearly. Even now, this memory is a gift.

 

Her father teaches her the art of the sword when she is eight, hands her a wooden sword and shows her how to hold it. Marc is four years old and desperate to be like his big sister, so he follows along to her lessons with a leafy twig in hand. Lucina takes to the sword quickly, a fast learner, born for it. She can’t quite count the amount of times lessons had to stop because of her mother’s headaches.

 

At age ten, Lucina struggles to truly understand the amount of pain her childhood friends are in. Cynthia weeps on the daily until one day she doesn’t, when she arrives at the castle doorstep with harshly cut hair and white knuckles. Yarne still calls for his mother and father at night, and Lucina knows that her own parents do their best to soothe him but… Nothing ever really does the trick. She keeps Morgan close to her, after Kjelle arrives on a cold night with nothing more than a ring in her hands and the clothes on her back. She vows again to never let harm come to him.

 

Three months later, Lissa and Owain come back to Ylisstol, all that they have on their backs. She’s ecstatic to see her beloved cousin again, show him how much better she’s gotten at swordplay, but he’s not the same. She’ll catch the hollow look in his eyes before bed, when his mother says ‘goodnight’ and lights a candle in their now shared room. She sees it still when they practice, but says nothing of it - she can only imagine how she might act if she lost her father.

 

At the ripe young age of 12 years old, Lucina stands next to her aunt and cousin as a heavy circlet of gold is placed onto her head. For what appears to be the first time in recent history, there is no people for the new exalt to give a speech to - they are all long gone, lost to the flames of war. Her mother is missing in action, her father dead, and her brother - the one person she swore she would protect - vanished from his bedroom in the dead of night. Her very first act of rule is to call the remnants of the Shepherds together, but even then, only three show up. When she asks Miriel and Frederick and Stahl where the rest are, they grimace and shake their heads.

 

“The costs of war are heavy, my lady.” Miriel says, kneeling to Lucina’s height. “But I swear to the Gods, we’ll do all we can to ensure these costs are not in vain”

 

(Her words, she later finds, are untrue. The last three children stumble through the castle halls not even a week later).

 

She’s fourteen and not there when it happens. Owain is only twelve and yet he carries the lifeless body of his mother halfway across the Halidom so she could be buried in the village she grew to love with her husband, but Lucina has to stop him. She has to be the one to tell him that they have to burn her, to prevent… unfortunate things. He’ll scream at her, Lucina thinks, but he doesn’t. All of his misery seems to be tucked away, somewhere that may never see the light of day.

 

Fifteen years and counting, the Halidom has been at war. For three of them, a child has ruled with no guidance and yet people still flock to her and vow to fight in her name. They hardly heed to her words when she screams at them to stop on the field, to let one commander go free. There are tears rolling down her cheeks when the violet cloaked figure fades into the haze of the forest, but she’s kept her promise yet. Her kingsguard may distrust her now, but no one would ever bring harm to her baby brother.

 

They fight for three more years before she scatters her friends to the wind in search of the gemstones. When all of them come back, alive, with gemstones in tow, she breathes a little easier. They eat a last supper together, small slivers of dried jerky with river water and stories of better days, before they go to Naga.

 

(There is no sound when you go back in time. It is pure darkness and silence and you have to pray that you have a tight enough grip to keep all twelve of you together.)

 

She falls from the sky, and is forced straight into battle, protecting her aunt from the horrors of her homeworld. In the brief second she gets to think, she wonders if Lissa has met her husband to be yet? The thoughts are pushed from her mind as another purple hand swings at her.

 

An hour later, she stands before her parents ( _they’re here,_ her mind shrieks, _they’re alive and well, you idiot, go hug them_ ) and warns them of a future filled with despair. Lucina sets off then, towards Regna Ferox in search of their rendezvous point.

 

Her heart sinks when she finds no one else waiting for her under the shade of the old willow tree.


End file.
